Inoculation theory
Inoculation theory is a social psychological/communication theory that explains how an attitude or belief can be made resistant to persuasion or influence, in analogy to how a body gains resistance to disease. The theory uses medical inoculation as its explanatory analogy but instead of applying it to disease, it is used to discuss attitudes and other positions, like opinions, values, and beliefs. It has applicability to public campaigns targeting misinformation and fake news, but it is not limited to misinformation and fake news.
The theory was developed by social psychologist William J. McGuire in 1961 to explain how attitudes and beliefs change, and more specifically, how to keep existing attitudes and beliefs consistent in the face of attempts to change them. Inoculation theory functions to confer resistance of counter-attitudinal influences from such sources as the media, advertising, interpersonal communication, and peer pressure.
The theory posits that weak counterarguments generate resistance within the receiver, enabling them to maintain their beliefs in the face of a future, stronger challenge. Following exposure to weak counterarguments, the receiver will then seek out supporting information to further strengthen their threatened position. The held attitude or belief becomes resistant to a stronger "attack," hence the medical analogy of a vaccine.
Inoculating messages can raise and refute the same counterarguments in the "attack" or different counterarguments on the same or a related issue. The effect of the inoculating message can be amplified by making the message of vested and immediate importance to the receiver. Post-inoculation talk can further spread inoculation effects to their social network, and the act of talking to others can additionally strengthen resistance to attitude change.
Therapeutic inoculation is a recent extension in which an inoculation message is presented to those without the targeted belief or attitude in place. Applied in this way, an inoculation message can both change an existing position and make that new position more resistant to future attacks.
About
Inoculation is a theory that explains how attitudes and beliefs can be made more resistant to future challenges. For an inoculation message to be successful, the recipient experiences threat and is exposed to and/or engages in refutational processes. The arguments that are presented in an inoculation message must be strong enough to initiate motivation to maintain current attitudes and beliefs, but weak enough that the receiver will be able to refute the counterargument.Inoculation theory has been studied and tested through decades of scholarship, including experimental laboratory research and field studies. Inoculation theory is used today as part of the suite of tools by those engaged in shaping or manipulating public opinion. These contexts include: politics, health campaigns marketing, education, and science communication, among others.
The inoculation process is analogous to the medical inoculation process from which it draws its name; the analogy served as the inaugural exemplar for how inoculation confers resistance. As McGuire initially explained, medical inoculation works by exposing the body to a weakened form of a virus—strong enough to trigger a response, but not so strong as to overwhelm the body's resistance. Attitudinal inoculation works the same way: expose the receiver to weakened counterarguments, triggering refutational processes which confers resistance to later, stronger "attack" like persuasive messages. This process works like a metaphorical vaccination: the receiver becomes immune to attacking messages that attempt to change their attitudes or beliefs. Inoculation theory suggests that if one sends out messages with weak counterarguments, an individual can build immunity to stronger messages and strengthen their original attitudes toward an issue.
Most inoculation theory research treats inoculation as a preemptive, preventive messaging strategy—used before exposure to strong challenges. More recently, scholars have begun to test inoculation as a therapeutic inoculation treatment, administered to those who have the "wrong" target attitude/belief. In this application, the treatment messages both persuade and inoculate—much like a flu shot that cures those who already have been infected with the flu and protects them against future threats. More research is needed to better understand therapeutic inoculation treatments—especially field research that takes inoculation outside of the laboratory setting.
Another shift in inoculation research moves from a largely cognitive, intrapersonal process to a process that is both cognitive and affective, intrapersonal and interpersonal. For example, in contrast to explanations of inoculation that focused nearly entirely on cognitive processes, more recent research has examined how inoculation messages motivate actual talk about the target issue. Scholars have confirmed that exposure to an inoculation message motivates more post-inoculation talk about the issue. For example, Tweets containing native advertising disclosures – a type of inoculation message – were more likely to include negative commentary which is a sign of resistance to influence consistent with PIT.
History
set out to conduct research on ways to encourage opposition to persuasion while others created experiments to do the opposite. McGuire was motivated to study inoculation and persuasion as a result of the aftermath of the Korean War. McGuire was concerned for those who were forced into certain situations which was the main inspiration for this theory. Nine US prisoners of war, when given the opportunity, elected to remain with their captors. Many assumed they were brainwashed, so McGuire and other social scientists turned to ways of conferring resistance to persuasion. This was a change in extant persuasion research, which was almost exclusively concerned with how to make messages more persuasive, and not the other way around.The theory of inoculation was derived from previous research studying one-sided and two-sided messages. One-sided messages are supportive messages to strengthen existing attitudes, but with no mention of counterpositions. One-sided messages are frequently seen in political campaigns when a candidate denigrates his or her opponent through "mudslinging". This method is effective in reinforcing extant attitudes of derision toward the opposition and support for the "mudslinging" candidate. If the audience supports the opposition, however, the attack message is ineffective. Two-sided messages present both counterarguments and refutations of those counterarguments. To gain compliance and source credibility, a two-sided message must demonstrate the sender's position, then the opposition's position, followed by a refutation of the opposition's argument, then finally the sender's position again.
McGuire led a series of experiments assessing inoculation's efficacy and adding nuance to our understanding for how it works). Early studies limited testing of inoculation theory to cultural truisms, or beliefs accepted without consideration. This meant it was primarily used toward the attitudes that were rarely, if ever attacked by opposing forces. The early tests of inoculation theory were used on non-controversial issues,. Few refute that brushing one's teeth is a good habit, therefore external opposing arguments against tooth brushing would not change one's opinion, but it would strengthen support for brushing one's teeth. Studies of inoculation theory currently target less popular or common attitudes, such as whether one should buy a Mac or a Windows-based PC computer or if one should support gay marriage.
Implementing inoculation theory in studies of contemporary social issues, and the variety and resurgence of such studies, helps bolster the effectiveness and utility of the theory and provides support that it can be used to strengthen and/or predict attitudes. These later developments of the theory extended inoculation to more controversial and contested topics in the contexts of politics, health, marketing, and contexts in which people have different pre-existing attitudes, such as climate change. The theory has also been applied in education to help prevent substance abuse.
Pre-Bunking
It is much more difficult to eliminate the influence or persuasion of misinformation once individuals have seen it which is why debunking and fact checking have failed in the past. Due to this, a phenomenon known as pre-bunking as introduced. Pre-bunking is a form of Inoculation theory that aims to combat various kinds of manipulation and misinformation spread around the web. In recent years, misleading information and the permeation of such have become an increasingly prevalent issue. Standard Inoculation theory aims to combat persuasion. Still pre-bunking seeks to target misinformation by providing a harmless example of it. Exposure builds future resistance to similar misinformation.In 2021, Nanlan Zhang examined inoculation by looking at harsh, preconceived ideas of mental health. Such ideas included the association of mental health with violence. The study consisted of two different experiments, including 593 participants. In the first, subjects were shown misinformation regarding gun violence, only to have the misinformation explained away. These inoculative techniques were concluded to be slightly effective. In the second experiment of the study, subjects were shown false messages that had either high or low credibility. In the first half of the study, the inoculation affected > 50% of the participants. The second half of the study showed increased effectiveness in inoculation, with subjects showing distrust in high and low credibility messages.
A common form of pre-bunking is in the form of short videos, meant to grab a viewer's attention with a fake message and then inoculate the viewer by explaining the manipulation. In 2022, Jon Roozenbeek developed five pre-bunking video to test the viability of short-form inoculation messages. A total of 29,116 subjects were then shown multiple fabricated posts from various social media outlets. The subjects were then tasked with differentiating between benign posts and ones containing manipulation. The videos were effective in improving the viewer's ability to identify manipulative tactics. Viewers showed about a 5% average increase in identifying such tactics.